Get
Carter is s shocking violent, cruel and nihilistic little revenge film. What
starts out as a seemingly normal little revenge film, becomes increasingly coldhearted
as it goes along, culiminating in an nihilistic finish to what is a truly great
British gangster film. Michael Caine apparently once told Bob Hoskins that
there were only three great British gangsters films “I was in one (Get Carter),
you were in another (The Long Good Friday) and we both in the other (Mona
Lisa)”. I have seen The Long Good Friday and Mona Lisa, and they are truly
great films. And Caine was right – Get Carter is just as great.

Caine
stars as Jack Carter, a London
gangster, who decides to head up North to his old hometown of Newcastle when his brother gets killed. The
police think it was simply a drunk driving accident, and Carter’s gangland
bosses don’t want him to go either, saying they have connections up there, and
they don’t want him mucking them up. But he doesn’t care – he’s going anyway.
When he arrives, he is underestimated by the local gangsters – they think he’s
little more than a big city dandy, playing at being a tough guy. But Carter is
tough – and soon he’s playing one bad guy off of another, trying to dig into
the truth.

Carter
was never really close with his brother. One of his brothers friends, after he
gets the crap kicked out of him, which Carter knew was most likely coming but
did nothing to stop it, tells him that his brother was right – Carter really is
a shit. And he is. He doesn’t care about his brother or his death – not really
– but it’s really more of the principle of the thing. He was Carter’s brother,
he was killed, and he wants to know why, and who did it. The only person he
seems to care about at all is his niece Doreen (Petra Markham), who may well be
his daughter since he had an affair with his brother’s wife years ago. Carter
seems cold, detached and emotionless for much of the movie. He’s there on a “job”,
and he’ll do it. But when he finds out that Doreen has been taken advantage of
in a cruel way, that’s when he gets angry, and the bodies start to pile up.

It’s
during the film’s final reel that the violence gets shocking, which gave
British censors fits in 1971 when the film was released. Particularly
bothersome to them was a cruel, cold scene where Carter forces his brother’s
“once a week prostitute” Margaret (Dorothy White) to strip at gunpoint, and
then forces her to take a lethal overdose of heroin. Margaret really isn’t
guilty of much, but to Carter she is really just a means to an end. He wants to
get someone else in trouble, and knows a dead prostitute at his house will do
the trick – and Margaret fits the bill.

Get
Carter has elements of film noir – and director Mike Hodges plays with this a
little, having Carter read Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely on his train ride for
example. But that’s just about the only light hearted moment in the film. If
film noir presented a world without heroes, just different levels of rotten,
than Get Carter certainly fits the bill. The “hero” of the movie is just as bad
as everyone else in it. He’s a cruel, sociopathic murderer, who is going after
other cruel, sociopathic murderers. And in this role, Michael Caine may just
give the best performance of his career. His Carter is like a shark –
constantly moving, constantly on the prowl and looking to move in for the kill.
He is the typical post modern man – defined on his actions alone. He has no
time for introspection. We see echoes of his Carter in lots of movies today.
Caine, who is recent years seems to have transformed himself into a kind,
grandfatherly like presence in movie like The Cider House Rules (for which he
won his second Oscar), was not always so nice. In Get Carter, he’s downright
cruel, and his eventual end is the only one that fits the movie.

Director
Mike Hodges has never really achieved the level of Get Carter again in his
career. In recent years, he has returned to the gangster genre, and made two
fine films starring Clive Own – Croupier and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. But
neither match the ruthless, cruel effeiciency of Get Carter. This film is
masterful.

About Me

I am an accountant, living in Brantford, ON - and although I am married and have beautiful daughter, I still find time to watch a lot of movies. This blog is mostly reviews of new movies - with other musing thrown in as well.